


Riddle Me, Love

by cuppatea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Prom, Teenlock, Unilock, dumb riddles, prom au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1659971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuppatea/pseuds/cuppatea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's that time of year again. Prom season. Greg finally works up the guts to ask Molly this year in his own special way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riddle Me, Love

“So did you do it yet?”

Greg continued to stare resolutely at his textbook, ignoring the persistent buzzing berating his left ear.

“So did you do it yet?” Greg continued to stare resolutely at his textbook, ignoring the persistent buzzing berating his left ear.

“Have you done it? You’re gonna run out of time.”

Fingers gripped the book cover a bit harder. Greg clenched his jaw in a determined effort to block out the disturbance.

“You know if you don’t do it soon, someone else might get to her first.”

Don’t get distracted, Greg told himself. Don’t get distracted.

“You’ll be left all by your lonesome self again, just like last ye—”

“FOR GOD’S SAKE MIKE WILL YOU SHUT UP?”

Damn. His patience didn’t last as long as it used to. Maybe high school was making him more irritable like his parents constantly said. Mrs. Turner at the front of the classroom shouted at him to quit making so much noise Lestrade or else a white board eraser is getting stuffed down your trachea. Well then. At least Greg could be certain that he wasn’t the most ill tempered soul in the room. He shot Mike a menacing glare to which his friend just replied with a shrug and one of his trademark playful grins.

“No,” Greg hissed quietly at him in answer to his question, “I haven’t asked Molly yet. I just haven’t found the right time, okay? And don’t you dare bring up last year!” Memories of solitary rom-com movies, cartons of pity ice cream and soda, and the eternally depressing factor of social media resurfaced in his mind. He’d spent miserable hours scrolling through picture after picture of all his friends with their dates at the school dance last year. Each pair of bright smiles brought a little more darkness to Greg’s misery. The photo of Molly and her then-boyfriend Tom together nearly made Greg smash his phone to smithereens. Sherlock was one of the only students at the school who despised the ‘pointless social disaster that is Prom’. Last year at the time, he’d offered Greg a chance to help him with one of his experiments, his excuse being that his usual partner John had gone to the dance with Mary.

“Honestly, Graham, I can’t believe John thought it was more important to go grind with a crowd of hormonal imbeciles than to assist me at the most crucial point of this experiment! Without a second pair of hands and eyes, there’ll be significant amounts of data lost!” Sherlock had sulked in what Greg had by then labeled as his Five-Year-Old-Whine.

“For the third time Sherlock, my name is Greg,” he had sighed into the phone. “Also John has a girlfriend, so it’s not surprising that he’d want to go to Prom with her.” This earned him a petulant huff in response. “And no, I’m not helping you with your experiments anymore. The last time that gas exploded in your lab, I smelled like old mayonnaise for a week. I still have bits of burnt hair to prove my point!” Sherlock had hung up on him after that, leaving him to cope with the rest of the weekend alone.

This year though, Greg was determined to take Molly Hooper to Prom. He’d first met Molly when they were paired up as lab partners in Chemistry class. The girl was attractive in her unique, simplistic way. She had long brown hair that was usually tied up for practicality, and her crooked smile made Greg’s heart stutter the first time he’d made her laugh. Though Molly was a tad socially awkward, she was incredibly intelligent, and her proficiency in the laboratory landed her the position of president of the Natural Sciences Club. Over the course of the year, they’d become close friends, and Greg developed an affection for Molly. But Mike was right. If Greg didn’t make his move soon, another Tom might come in and sweep her away. Right. Tonight then.

*****

Molly walked into the laboratory at 5:00 that evening, books and papers cradled in her arm and bag slung over her shoulder. Molly sighed. Listening to her friends gush for hours on end about this and that was lovely, but it did get tiresome after a while. She dumped her things at her usual station and was about to begin working when something caught her eye. A sheet of pink construction paper was taped to the counter beside a rack of test tubes. On it was scrawled in black sharpie:

 

_‘Hello Molly! I have a surprise for you. Solve this riddle and have a look :-)_

_Through only one eye can I see, but my eyesight definitely has yours beat_

_One arm provides my sole support, for my neck is craned and my limbs are short._

_What am I?_

_\--Greg Lestrade x’_

 

Molly stared at the note and chuckled. It would be like Greg to play a silly trick on her. The guy was practically brimming with witty jokes and bad puns. Might as well indulge him. Molly reread the riddle: an eye, an arm, and a neck with short limbs? What on earth..? For a minute, all Molly could imagine was a ridiculous looking cyclops. She cast her eyes around the room, and suddenly the light bulb blinked on in her mind. “Oh!” she exclaimed and darted to the station two tables over. An optical microscope was sitting on the countertop, and a tiny post-it note stuck to the eyepiece read, ‘Yay you’ve found me! Now take a look at the slide and answer my next question.’ With a sense of pride for having solved the first puzzle, Molly powered up the microscope and peered into the eyepiece. On the slide, written in (literally) microscopic print, was the word: P R O M?

Molly jumped back from the microscope with wide eyes and squeaked, hands quickly covering her mouth at the sound of the high pitched yelp. She looked back into the microscope and reread the message. Then she reread it again. Her ponytail swung over her shoulders as she looked around the empty classroom, as if expecting someone to jump out from behind a table and yell, “Fooled you!” Instead came a polite knock from the door and Greg walked in.

“Oh good I see you’ve figured out my puzzle,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re blushing, Molly.”

The wide grin on his face in addition to the statement just caused Molly’s face to heat up even more. Flustered and a little more than overwhelmed, she stammered, “Y-you’re not lying about this, are you?” She wrung her hands, “are you really asking me to go with you?”

A bit taken aback by her disbelief, Greg replied stunned, “Of course I am! I’m not the kind of guy who would ever do all this to you as a sick joke. That’s terrible.” He took hold of both her hands in a reassuring manner. “I adore everything about you, Molly. I’d be honored if you’d go to Prom with me. What do ya say?” He gave her a shy, sincere smile.

Greg laughed when Molly leapt forward and threw her arms around his neck. “Yes I’ll go with you,” he heard her say quietly by his ear. Greg couldn’t see her face while she was hugging him, but he could feel Molly’s warm cheek against his neck. He giggled at the thought other face lit up bright red light a stop light.

“I hope I’ll be a good date,” Greg mused. “You wouldn’t believe how nervous I was about asking you; I nearly drove Mycroft Holmes up a wall with all my worrying.” Molly laughed at this and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry Greg. I’m sure you’ll be wonderful.”

***

“I’m going to be a failure!”

The older Holmes brother stared passively at Greg as the anxious man paced back and forth in his bedroom. “Gregory,” Mycroft spoke in his usual tone of superiority, “Will you please stop walking around in circles? You’re going to run a hole into the carpet.” Greg stood still, but continued to run his hands through his hair, making him look even more out of sorts.

“God, Mycroft I don’t know how I’m gonna get through tonight without looking like a complete clot,” Greg moaned. “I’m poor. I can’t dance. And I don’t even look good in a suit.”

Mycroft stood up from where he was sitting in his chair by his desk. He strode over to the bed where Greg’s prepared suit was laid out, ready to wear and picked up the deep blue tie. “That’s nonsense,” he stated as if it were a fact and slung the tie around Greg’s neck. “Only two out of three of those statements are true. You’ll look excellent in this suit.”

“And you don’t need to know how to dance anyway,” Sherlock piped in irritably from where he passing by in the hall, clad in his pajamas, a dressing gown, safety goggles and holding beakers full of who knows what. “There’s never any proper dancing at Prom. You’re either jumping and flailing or swaying back and forth. As long as you have the basic ability to balance yourself on two feet, you won’t humiliate yourself too badly.” And with a dramatic swoosh of his dressing gown, he was out of sight again.

Mycroft sighed at his brother’s frank nature of speaking. Looking at the conflicted expression on Greg’s face, it seems he didn’t know whether to feel comforted or even more terrified. Mycroft laid a hand on Greg’s shoulder and said, “He’s right you know…in a way. You’ll be fine tonight. Anyone with two eyes and a brain neuron can see that you and Molly Hooper are a perfectly compatible.”

Greg laughed weakly. Leave it to the Holmes brothers to comfort you through insults. Though, it did seem to work since he wasn’t feeling quite so dreadful anymore. He squared his shoulder and picked up the suit jacket. “Thanks Mycroft. Now, since I always see you wearing posh clothes, there’s just one more thing I need for you to do.”

“What’s that?”

Greg tugged at the blue silk hanging around his neck and smiled. “Teach me how to tie this necktie.”

***

Prom turned out being wonderful, despite all of Greg’s inhibitions. Molly looked stunning in her dress, the ivory satin with the blue ribbon around her waist complimented Greg’s dark suit nicely, and above all her smile lit up her face like a star. The dance itself was loud and rowdy and exhilarating, just as a high school dance should be. They spotted John and Mary, Mike Stamford and his date Beatriz, and many of Molly’s friends all gushing over Greg. When the time for slow dancing arrived, Greg thanked every deity and god in the sky when he finally got to wrap his arms around Molly’s waist and just sway. As the night drew to a close and the crowd was dispersing, Molly leaned up and kissed Greg on the cheek.

“See that wasn’t so bad, now. Was it? I think you’re a fantastic dancer,” she giggled. The dim light from the streetlamp where they stood outside lit up the side of her face. Greg couldn’t help but thing the pattern of illumination that accented the curves of her cheek and lips made her look like and angel with a golden halo.

“No, it was fantastic,” he said taking her hand. “Truly extraordinary.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the NEHS Prom AU writing contest
> 
> Sorry for the super lame title heh;; This is my first time posting a fic online and my first time working with this pairing, so please be kind with me! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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